General Qualifications Bulletin - International - Issue 56 | Pearson qualifications

General Qualifications Bulletin - International - Issue 56

Tue Aug 13 14:00:00 UTC 2024

Dear Colleague, 

I hope you have all been able to enjoy well-earned break after the exam season.

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It’s been another very busy period for us. With the support of our incredible workforce of examiners we have marked over 90 million individual questions which will ensure that all learners receive their grades on the upcoming results days. I'd like to thank all our examiners for their dedication and hard work this series.

In this special results edition of the qualifications bulletin, we’ve got lots of information for teachers and Exams Officers so you can support your students on International A Level / A level, iPrimary, and iLowerSecondary and International GCSE / GCSE results days, including:

  • results weeks key timeline 
  • understanding your centre’s results 
  • grade boundaries 
  • scaling 
  • results support for students, parents and carers 
  • Exams Officer support
  • Post-results services

For your students, we’ve got support information for results: Understanding results and grades: a guide for students, parents and carers. It also contains important information about how to access any post results services, should they wish to use them.

Ofqual have published a blog post providing students with important information about marking, grading and results for 2024: GCSE 9–1 grades to uni places: What you need to know about 2024 exam results. Please do pass this on to your students.

As we head towards September and the new academic year, there will be lots of information to digest. Please do ensure you and your colleagues, especially any new teachers to your centre, are signed up to receive specific Subject Advisor newsletters that will contain important information they’ll need to know for the months ahead. 

In the meantime, if you need any more information or want to share any feedback with us, you can always get in touch via our support portal. We will always do our best to get you the answers as quickly as possible.

Have a great few weeks celebrating the achievements of all your learners, they should be very proud of all they have achieved.

With best wishes,

Hayley White
Vice President, Assessment, Standards and Services 

The next two weeks sees the release of both Level 2 and Level 3 General Qualifications results.

Results should not be issued to candidates until 08:00am (BST) on 15 or 22 August depending on the qualification. Please refer to the tables below for a final reminder of what’s happening and when.

Level 3 Qualifications
AS/A level inc, AEA, International AS/A level, Edexcel Award, Level 3 Extended Project (EPQ), Mathematics in Context.

Date

Time (BST)

Details



Wednesday 14 August

00:01am

Electronic (EDI) results released to centres via A2C

04.00am

Electronic results will be available for centres on Edexcel Online (EOL)

06.00am

Results files uploaded to Exams Officer's EOL mailboxes

08.00am

Grade Boundaries will be available for Exams Officers to download via EOL




Thursday 15 August

06:00am

ResultsPlus available to centres

08.00am

Grade boundaries published and UMS calculator available on our website

08:00am

Post Results system available to centres on Edexcel Online

08:00am

Results can be released to students

09:00am

ResultsPlus Direct available to students

Level 2 Qualifications
GCSE, International GCSE, Project Level 1 and 2, Edexcel Award Level 1 and 2, ELC(A), iPrimary and iLowerSecondary.

Date

Time (BST)

Details



Wednesday 21 August

00:01am

Electronic (EDI) results released to centres via A2C

04.00am

Electronic results will be available for centres on Edexcel Online (EOL)

06.00am

Results files uploaded to Exams Officer's EOL mailboxes

08.00am

Grade Boundaries will be available for Exams Officers to download via EOL




Thursday 22 August

06:00am

ResultsPlus available to centres

08.00am

Grade boundaries published and UMS calculator available on our website

08:00am

Post Results system available to centres on Edexcel Online

08:00am

Results can be released to students

09:00am

ResultsPlus Direct available to students

Please note that when results are released to centres they are confidential to the head of centre, examinations office staff and senior members of teaching staff within the centre, the consortium or Multi Academy Trust.

You must not disclose your centre’s results, or information derived from these results, with others, including teachers; candidates or parents; Local Authorities; and the media. Please see the JCQ Notice to centres: Release of results June 2024 examinations for more information. You can also find plenty of support for teachers and exams officers on our dedicated results support page.

As teachers and Heads of departments, you may not have had to access our secure systems for some time, with the next time you need to do this being on learner results days. We’d like to take this opportunity to remind all users of systems such as Edexcel Online and ResultsPlus, that there is now a requirement to authenticate via an app on a smart phone in order to access these systems.

If you haven't accessed these platforms for some time, we would urge you to do so before Thursday 15 August, so we can work with you to resolve any issues and avoid any delays in access on results days.

If you need any support with this, please read the information we sent out to teachers last month. You can also access the support documents should you need any additional help.

If you are authenticating for the first time, additional support can be found in our Logging in and Accessing Pearson Services using the Pearson Portal support article or viewing our Pearson Portal Authenticator FAQs.

Taking these steps now will ensure you all have a successful results day.

There is plenty of support available to help you understand your students’ results, and as always, we’ll be here to support you with post-results services and answering any queries you may have.

We’ve produced a guide to help you understand your students’ results and the steps you can take to get more insight about their grades and what to do if you’re unsure that the right grade has been given - using our ResultsPlus and Access to Scripts services. Download the guide now.

Understanding your students’ results - a guide to our post-results services

Ofqual has also published a blog post ahead of results day for AS, A level and T Level.

Looking ahead to level 3 results day for AS, A level, T Level and vocational and technical qualifications

Grade Boundary information will be available to download via Edexcel Online (EOL) on 14 August (AS/A level) and 21 August (GCSE/International GCSE). Grade boundary documents must be treated as secure and confidential information. They must not be published or distributed wider than to Exams Office staff and the Head of Centre until Thursday, when grade boundaries and results are available to students and teachers on our website. This ensures there is no undue anxiety to learners prior to the issue of results.

As a reminder, we publish both grade boundaries and notional component grade boundaries for each qualification. The notional component grade boundaries can be useful as an indicator of grade performance when, for example, an examination paper is used as a future mock examination. There is an explanation of how grade boundaries and notional component grade boundaries and scaling work at the start of each notional component grade boundary document. It is useful to review these when considering applying for a review of marking and moderation.

To help centres understand grade boundaries for 2024 we’ve produced a short guide explaining the approach to grade boundaries for our international qualifications for 2024. 

Understanding grade boundaries 2024 – International qualifications

The total subject mark for a number of linear AS and A levels may not be the same as the total of individual component marks (“raw” marks). This is due to a process called scaling, where raw marks for some qualifications are given a “weighting” factor to reflect the contribution each component makes to the overall qualification. The raw mark for each component is scaled up or down by multiplying it by the weighting factor.

You can read more about scaling on our support portal, alongside our scaling component calculator.

Letter to students from Ofqual and UCAS
Ofqual’s Chief Regulator, Sir Ian Bauckham CBE, and UCAS’s Chief Executive, Dr Jo Saxton CBE, have written a letter to students who will receive their results on 15 August 2024. The letter outlines important information about results this year. Please do pass this letter on to students and parents.

Letter to students from Ofqual and UCAS

Ofqual has published a blog post providing students with important information about marking, grading and results for 2024. Please do pass this on to your students.

GCSE 9–1 grades to uni places: What you need to know about 2024 exam results

Ofqual has also published an article confirming that marking and grading are happening as normal this May/June and this will continue in future years.

Grading continues as normal this summer in England

You can also take a look at the blog on the Education Hub that provides information on results days, grading and what do if students are unhappy with their results.

When is results day 2024? GCSEs, A levels, T Levels and VTQs

Understanding results and grades
We understand that it can be anxious wait for students in the run up to results day, so we’ve put together a guide to Understanding results and grades with helpful information about what to expect on results day and where to find further support. The guide includes information on:

  • dates for results days
  • receiving and understanding results
  • grades and grade boundaries
  • what steps to take if they are not happy with their results
  • university applications 
  • certificates
  • where to find further support.

You can also take a look at our dedicated results support page for students, parents and carers where they’ll find all the information they need to understand their results. Please do pass all this important information on to students, parents and carers.

To help results days go as smoothly as possible we’ve created some guidance for Exam’s Officers for all the essential results processes.  

Please take a look at EO Support: Results Days 2024 Essential Information covering important topics, including:

  • release dates and times
  • results reports
  • ResultsPlus
  • post-results services
  • appeals.

Our Results, Post-Results & Appeals guidance includes information about results and post-results services including:

  • A2C / EDI Results
  • general qualifications
  • vocational qualifications
  • ResultsPlus and ResultsPlus Direct
  • post-results and appeals.

There is also new General qualifications post-results training module available on the Pearson Development Hub.

When raising any queries with us please include the name of the product, service, system you are contacting us about in the description or subject line. For example, of you are contacting us about a priority Review of Moderation please use 'RoMM' or for a missing A level result please use 'GCE result'. This will help us prioritise any queries which are time sensitive and ensure your learners receive the outcomes they deserve.

JCQ support for results days 
Please do also refer to the JCQ documentation for results day support.

JCQ Release of results: June 2024 examinations guidance

JCQ Post-results services booklet

ResultsPlus 
ResultsPlus is our online results analysis tool that gives you a detailed breakdown of your students’ performance in Pearson Edexcel exams. Providing you with the most detailed analysis available of your students’ performance, ResultsPlus will help you to identify topics and skills where your students could benefit from further learning – helping them gain a deeper understanding of their subject.

Take a closer look at ResultsPlus

Access to Scripts 
Our popular Access to Scripts* service provides visibility and transparency of marking and helps to inform future teaching and learning. 

You can find out more about Access to Scripts on our website, along with FAQs and a step-by-step User Guide. If a paper has been traditionally marked (not online) then these will not be available through Access to Scripts, but you can still request a free copy through the post results section of Edexcel Online.

Access to Scripts availability for Learner Work Transfer 
The Access to Scripts service will be removed for most qualifications where work has been uploaded to the Learner Work Transfer portal from the summer 2024 series.

This means you will no longer have to wait for our processing team to respond to any access to script copy (ATSC) requests with the examiner’s mark breakdown to support any review of marking decisions.

From learner results day, the Learner Work Transfer portal will be available for you to view learner work previously submitted and which the examiner has based their marks on.

You can access the breakdown of marks for individual questions on the learner material via ResultsPlus.

Read more about availability of Access to Scripts and Learner Work Transfer

*This service is available for any exam paper that has been marked online. Written permission must be gained from candidates before scripts can be accessed. 

Review of marking and moderation services and appeals
You can read about the review of marking and moderation (RoMM) services available to you, alongside our information on post-results deadlines.

We also have a guide to applying for post-results services on our support portal which includes a video walk-through of requesting a post results service.

If you need to consider making an appeal after you've received the outcome of a post-results service, you can view our guide to making an appeal on the support portal.

Please take a look at fees for all of our post-results services and our post-results key dates for May/June 2024.

Fees for post-results services (from 1 August 2024 to 31 July 2025)

Post-results key dates

Our Key Dates Finder enables you to find all of the key dates for Pearson general qualifications and subjects in one place. Here are those taking place during the next few months.

Date

Qualification

Exam
series

Description

12 August 24

International GCSE

Nov 24

Basedata issued

14 August 24

AS & A level, International AS & A level, AEA, Edexcel Awards Level 3, Project Level 3 and Core Maths Level 3

Jun 24

Restricted release of results to centres

15 August 24

AS & A level, International AS & A level, AEA, Edexcel Awards Level 3, Project Level 3 and Core Maths Level 3

Jun 24

Release of results to candidates

21 August 24

GCSE, International GCSE, Edexcel Awards L1 & 2, Project L1 & 2, Entry Level Certificate, iPrimary and iLowerSecondary

Jun 24

Restricted release of results to centres

22 August 24

GCSE, International GCSE, Edexcel Awards L1 & 2, Project L1 & 2, Entry Level Certificate, iPrimary and iLowerSecondary

Jun 24

Release of results to candidates

29 August 24

International AS & A level, iPrimary and iLowerSecondary

Oct 24

Entry deadline

30 August 24

International AS & A level, iPrimary and iLowerSecondary

Oct 24

Late entry fees will be charged from this date

31 August 24

All general qualifications

Jun 24

Deadline to request early certification

1 Sept 24

AS & A level Music Technology 8MT0/02 & 9MT0/02

Jun 25

Brief and logbook pre-release released on our website

2 Sept 24

GCSE English Language and Mathematics

Nov 24

Basedata issued

6 Sept 24

International AS & A level

Oct 24

Deadline to request transferred candidate arrangements

6 Sept 24

International AS & A level and Project

Jan 25

Basedata issued

13 Sept 24

International GCSE

Nov 24

Entry deadline

14 Sept 24

International GCSE

Nov 24

Late entry fees will be charged from this date

20 Sept 24

GCSE English Language and Mathematics

Nov 24

Final date for ordering modified papers using Access Arrangements Online (AAO)

For more information on key dates for post results services please visit our Post-results services key dates page

Visit our teaching, learning and assessment 2023/2024 page, to find the latest on BTEC results. You'll find results FAQs, including how to manage your earlier embargoed results. 

Stay up to date and sign up to our VQ bulletin newsletter, or follow us on social media @PearsonBTECAppr.

If you need any help or support, you can contact us through the Pearson support portal.

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